In 2009 my family adopted a child from Russia. All of our friends wanted to know how a single income family was able to save for a debt-free adoption. We are now adopting twin girls from Uganda. This blog is how God has grown our family.

Monday, July 29, 2013

I know its been too long since I have shared the craziness of my life with you all. But crazy it has been. The last post was about losing control of everything and being okay with it. Wow, I did not know when I wrote that just how much control would be lost or that as I was writing it life was changing, life was forming, and life was growing. You see very quickly, almost immediately after returning home from Uganda, I once again made the mistake of telling God my plan for the next year of my life. I was going to have an "easy" year; a year of no major life changes. Once again my God taught me the lesson that my ways are not His ways.

It was the Tuesday after Memorial Day, I had to take the girls to the local Health Department. So I ventured out with all four under the age of four at the time. The appointment was long, two hours in a small room with four crazy kids. Two hours of making puppets out of tongue depressers, drawing pictures on the paper sheet, and singing songs just loud enough so the staff didn't forget they had put us in that room. It wore me out, I was exhausted, spent. On the way home I was thinking wow this jet lag is taking way too long to get over. I should be back to normal by now, it is taking too much coffee to function everyday. Then I had a thought just as I was driving by our local Target. So we stopped at Target, my exhausted self unloaded four kids out of carseats, manipulated two into the cart, and convinced two to walk. I went to the pharmacy and picked out what I wanted. I then took the kids down the candy aisle to pick up a sweet for them and for me to munch on to help me stay awake. They picked out a huge bag of gummy bears, most of which were consumed by me. Once we got home and unloaded, I had something I had to do. I put the TV on to entertain the herd and I went into my bathroom. Where my world changed.

That was they day I learned about number five. Yes, if you don't personally know me I was pregnant. We filled the cliche, complete an adoption and get pregnant. This was hard news for me to process, not because the pregnancy was unwanted just unplanned. His plans are way bigger than my plans. I was so overwhelmed by the thought of another child to care for, more laundry ontop of the already enourmous mountain. I was struggling with four how was I going to do it with five. It took me a couple of days to come to terms with what a fifth would mean for our family. It even took a couple more months for us to share the news.

The thought of a fifth child was overwhelming in more ways the one. More than just the work, the mouth to feed, and sleepless nights. It was overwhelming to me because it reminded me of how much my heavenly Father knows my heart and my desires. And how He works for my good.

When we chose to become an adopting family we chose to persue God's plan for our family. To act on a dream. But with that new dream came the death of an old dream. I learned to accept the fact that I would not nurse another baby of mine and I would not smell that new baby scent. Completing the adoption of Hadley and Liana to me meant that I would not know all the joys of a new baby again. It was hard, but God filled that desire. He chose to give us another child to disciple in His ways.

Our little surprise is now 6 months old. Life is definitely crazy, we are probably very entertaining to watch. There are kids everywhere. Our house is full. Our quiver is full. Our hands are full. But more importantly our hearts are full.